Oct. 19, 2003 - 19:44 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Goblins And Stuff

The World Series, Football and Halloween are banging elbows moreso now than ever before. It seems to me.

Halloween, soon to follow is Thanksgiving pursued by Christmas, all blended with perpetual sporting seasons.

Maybe my aged mind is confused. Maybe because I was such a youngster there seemed to be such a gap between occasions. A chance to get a breather and look forward to the next sporting contests.

Anymore the supermarket goodie shelves are half taken up with holiday goodies, one event after another. And not enough is it that traditional holidays are observed by the commercial pushers, I think they are sneaking in new holidays. Perpetual holidays, change the name, change the spelling, make people want something seasonal.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Easter Eggs and Peeps push Christmas cut rock and ribbon candy off the shelves before Thanksgiving is over, or am I exaggerating a bit ?

In the markdown carts in the back of the supermarkets can be found holiday merchandise the store deems passe. Even before the holiday occurs.

The way I look at it is that holidays and sports are extending themselves to the point they overrun the ones ahead and actually devalue the lot.

When I was a kid there was an undeclared holiday that no merchant had a product to sell. "School's Out," one of the greatest of the year for us kids. An eternity of play time stretched out into the future. Fourth Of July added to the excitement of summer vacation. We played hard, had fun forever. Then came Labor Day. Some grownup or other would make the remark, "School will be starting soon after Labor Day." In our town, in the ancient ages, school started the next week day after Labor Day . . . . at least that is what my feeble memory says.

Although to me when I was a kid, tomorrow stretched out to a week before it came and a five minute punishment was forever almost, the passage of time would catch up with me too. Suddenly vacation was over, kaput, fini and school would start. I suppose that endless summer vacation would pall after while, especially in the snowy, grody, slushy winter time, but try to tell me that when I was a kid.

There was a long time in my youth I hated school -- even though I enjoyed myself in school most of the time. Then too there were the stable things about school, the smell of the oil mop the janitor used on the wooden floors, the almost floor to ceiling windows at the side of the room letting in light. I can't remember a light being turned on when I was in class, except in our auditorium which was totally enclosed by building. But there, there was stage lighting and enough lighting so that people wouldn't fall when trying to navigate the aisles. I seem to remember the smell of chalk and chalk dust, the smell and taste of that white library paste we had, The half pint of milk and graham cracker we would have mid morning. So many of those things seemed eternal, but faded away when we hit high school. School time gave us a means to compare free time of vacation to work time in school.

My Dad once told me that he worked to earn the money to make house payments, to buy clothing, school supplies, groceries and medicines as well as trying to have a bit left to go to shows. He said, "That's my job, your job Douggie is to go to school and get decent grades." I'll have to admit that I didn't perform my job too well even though I was learning all along -- just not what they were trying to teach me at the moment.

I guess it is just age. To me it seems that I just put away the Christmas tree ornaments and it is almost time to get them out again. But in my dreams sometimes I am haunted by fire-crackers, Christmas Trees, autumn leaves, Goblins And Stuff . . . . . . . .

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